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National Register of Historic Places Program:
African American History Month 2015

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources.

The National Register of Historic Places lists many properties significant for African American History. We take the opportunity of African American History Month to highlight just some of the properties that exemplify the contributions of African American culture and achievement.

Robert Russa Moton Boyhood HomePhotograph courtesy of the Virginia State Historic Preservation Office

Robert Russa Moton Boyhood Home, Rice, Virginia
The Robert Russa Moton Boyhood Home is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion B at the local level of significance for its direct historical association with the formative early life ofRobert Russa Moton (1867-1940), one ofthe most prominent African American educators in the United States in the first decades of the 20th century. Read more . . .

Linden Community and Recreation Center, Dayton, Ohio
The Linden Center represents a response to the challenges faced by African American citizens in a segregated community early in the 20th century. The Center, conceived, created and administered by African American community leaders, provided comprehensive services that included recreation, medical treatment, educational programming and life skills without regard to race or gender. Read more . . .

Lee, Arthur and Edith, House, Minneapolis, Minnesota
A series of menacing protests described as "riots" in the newspapers enveloped 4600 Columbus Avenue South following its purchase in June 1931 by Arthur and Edith Lee. The young couple was African-American, and they chose to buy a house in the "Field" neighborhood, part of South Minneapolis that area homeowners considered to be a "white neighborhood." Read more . . .

Past highlights:

Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University BuildingPhotograph courtesy of the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office

Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University Building, Chicago, Illinois
During the early 1900s, Chicago emerged as a center for black aviation rivaled only by Los Angeles. The Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical University served as an important entry point for many of the country's pioneering black pilots, who went on to play important roles in the promotion and expansion of black aviation in the United States and abroad. Read more . . .

American Baptist Theological Seminary Historic District, Nashville, Tennessee
American Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS) committed itself to Christian education and racial equality and fostered leadership among its students who went on to become prominent individuals in local and national civil rights efforts.The success of the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville hinged on student involvement, and indeed, students would become the driving force in the movement as it pushed into the Deep South. John Lewis, Bernard Lafayette, C.T. Vivian and James Bevel were all students at ABTS who came to the movement under the guidance of Reverend Kelly Miller Smith. Read more . . .

Durkee, Joseph H., Athletic Field, Jacksonville, Florida
The present brick stadium, which was renamed Durkee Field shortly after its construction in 1935, is significant for its connections to the African American community, serving as the home of the American Negro League Jacksonville Red Caps and the historically black Edward Waters College football team. Read more . . .

Mound Bayou Historic District, City of Mound Bayou, Mississippi
was founded by freed slaves after the Civil War with no assistance from other communities, what was accomplished is very significant and was accomplished under extremely difficult conditions. The founders and those that carne after them started with a wilderness and created over many years, a thriving self-sufficient community. Read more . . .

Paine College Historic DistrictPhotograph courtesy of the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office

Paine College Historic District, in Augusta, Georgia, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on December 26, 2012. Representing one of the few institutions of higher education created by a biracial board of trustees in Georgia for African-American students, Paine College Historic District was found historically important on the state level. Important for its role in education and African American heritage. Read More . . .

The Vienna High and Industrial School in Vienna, Georgia, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on December 19, 2012, as an excellent example of an equalization ( an educational facility created to be equal among African-American and white students) school in Georgia and is significant in the areas of architecture, education, ethnic heritage and social history. The International Style school was built in 1959 to accommodate the increasingly overcrowded Vienna County Training School, which was adjacent to the high school. Read more . . .

John Lewis poses for pictures in front of new artwork depicting Freedom Rides. Photograph courtesy of the Alabama State Historic Preservation Office via GSA: http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/284809#284873

On May 20, 1961, the Freedom Riders were attacked by a local mob at the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station in Montgomery, Alabama. The historic importance of the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station is limited to this one day, but the repercussions from the events brought the Civil Rights struggle into sharp relief and caught national and international attention. Arriving early in Montgomery with only a lone motorcycle patrolman escort, the Freedom Riders soon discovered that a crowd of approximately 200 angry protestors crowded the streets and the arrival bay area at the bus station. Among the crowd were several notorious Klansmen. 20 people were seriously injured, including John Seigenthaler, who was a personal representative of President Kennedy. John Lewis, a student activist who later would become a key figure in the civil rights movement and a U.S. Congressman, was one of the Freedom Riders on this portion of the journey.

Constructed in 1916-17, the Attucks School served the black community of Vinita, Oklahoma as a combined elementary, junior, and high school. Stylistically, the school is a combination of a simplified Art Deco and WPA construction. It was not the only black school in Craig County, as there were seven, but it was the only secondary school that was available to blacks until after desegregation in the mid-1950s. While the Vinita public school system readily desegregated as required by law following the landmark decision of Brown vs. Board of Education, it took upwards of three years for desegregation to occur in Vinita.

Rebuilding a church and a spirit! Rebuilt after the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, perhaps the most significant race riot in the history of the United States, the Mount Zion Baptist Church, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, stands as a historic symbol of the local African American community. The commitment of the Mount Zion Baptist Church parishioners in Greenwood to rebuild their church displayed both their tenacity in the face of adversity and their hopes for the future. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 resulted in the near complete destruction of the Greenwood African American neighborhood and business district. With no police or fire department protection, whites had burned nearly 30-40 blocks of homes and businesses, and nearly 9000 individuals were left homeless. The Mount Zion Baptist Church remained a landmark and rallying point of the Greenwood neighborhood’s and church’s persistence to survive after the riot.

The Berkley Square subdivision, which is located in the area historically known as Las Vegas’ Westside, consists of 148 Contemporary Ranch-style homes designed by internationally-known African American architect Paul R. Williams. It was built between 1954 and 1955 and was the first minority (African American) built subdivision in Nevada. Prior to the 1930s, racism was not a problem in Las Vegas simply because there were so few African American residents, but as the African American presence grew, segregation set in. Housing conditions on the Westside, where the African American population was located, were horrible, but planning between the City of Las Vegas and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) began in 1947 to build a community of affordable modern housing, which resulted in the creation of Berkley Square.

Newburgh Colored Burial Ground, Orange County, New York
It is known that village of Newburgh sustained a modest free black community in the mid-19th century and that the cemetery was actively used c. 1832 to c. 1867, a time when this area remained somewhat isolated from development. Further archeological study of the cemetery will help reveal more of the history of the free black community in that area. A weekly highlight. . .

Since the earliest days of the Los Angeles pueblo, African Americans have been a vital presence in the city. Over this period, the African American community in Los Angeles was shaped and reshaped by successive streams of migration. ...

Delmo Community CenterPhotograph courtesy of Missouri State Historic Preservation Office

Delmo Community Center: Pemiscot County, Missouri (pdf 4mb)
The community center was the historic social and political center of
Homestown, originally known as South Wardell, one of ten communities constructed by the Farm Security Administration for displaced sharecroppers and tenant farmers following the
January 1939 roadside sharecropper demonstration in Southeast Missouri. Though deteriorated, Homestown's Delmo Community Center continues to be an important feature of Southeast Missouri's Delmo communities, and represents
an era of community building and social experimentation sponsored by the Federal government.

Dunklin County's greatness! For more than 40 years this house was home to the Birthrights, former slaves who achieved economic independence and prosperity while building close ties with the families that had held them in slavery and the predominantly white citizenry of Clarkerton and Dunklin Counties. This barber and seamstress amassed substantial wealth from highly successful commercial and farming operations.

John Coltrane House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:
Tenor saxophonist and American jazz pioneer John Coltrane lived here
from 1952 until two years before his death in 1967. A musician and composer, Coltrane
played a central role in the development of jazz during the 1950s and
1960s.

George Black House and Brickyard: Forsyth County, North Carolina
was the
house of well-known African American brickmaker George H. Black. Black,
sometimes referred to as "The Last Brickmaker in America,"
lived and worked on this property from 1934 until his death in 1980
at age 101.

USS Alligator: Monroe County, Florida:
The remains of a schooner that once patrolled the west coast of Africa on
anti-slavery trade duty

One of the barns used as a hiding place for fugitive
slavesNational Historic Landmark photograph

Barton
Heights Cemeteries, Richmond, Virginia:These cemeteries were established between c.1815 and c.1865
by black churches, fraternal orders and benevolent organizations
and represent early efforts by African Americans to establish
their own cemeteries through burial societies that offered death
benefits.

Lorraine
Apartments, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:As the
largest property owner among African Americans in Philadelphia,
the Peace Mission employed many black Philadelphians in restaurants,
hotels and small business, while also providing meals, clothing,
barbers' services, transportation and lodging at reduced prices.

Carver
Theatre, Carver County, South Carolina:The Carver Theatre, at 1519 Harden Street in Columbia, South
Carolina, is important in the the early-to-mid twentieth century
history of Columbia's black community during the later period
of racial segregation in the South.

Union
Bethel AME Church, Cascade County, Montana: The Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in
Great Falls, Montana, is one of the first-built and longest-used
churches for African Americans in Montana and is important because
it represents trends in black community growth in the western
United States.

Howard High School, New Castle County, Delaware:
Howard High School, in Wilmington, Delaware, is one of the schools directly associated with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that found racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.

The Campground, Mobile County, Alabama:The Campground historic district has played an important role in the historical development of the predominately black community of Mobile, Alabama, since the third quarter of the 19th century.

Langston Hughes House, New York, New York:The Langston Hughes House is historically significant as the home of James Langston Hughes (1902-1967), author and poet and one of the foremost figures in the Harlem Renaissance.

Teaching
with Historic Places
This program offers a series of award-winning lesson plans that
use places listed in the National Register to enliven the study
of history, social studies, and geography. The many ready-to-use
lesson plans, available for free downloading, that examine different
aspects of African American history include:

National Historic Landmark Program's African American History MonthNational Historic Landmarks are nationally significant historic places designated by the Secretary of the Interior because they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. Their African American History Month feature highlights the Carter G. Woodson House.

National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program
The National Park Service is implementing a national Underground Railroad initiative to coordinate preservation and education efforts nationwide and integrate local historical places, museums, and interpretive programs associated with the Underground Railroad into a mosaic of community, regional, and national stories.

American
Visionaries: Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass has been called the father of the civil rights
movement. He rose through determination, brilliance, and eloquence
to shape the American nation. He was an abolitionist, human rights
and women's rights activist, orator, author, journalist, publisher,
and social reformer. This exhibit features items owned by Frederick
Douglass and highlights his achievements. The items are in the
museum and archival collections at the Frederick Douglass National
Historic Site at Cedar Hill, Southeast Washington, DC.

American
Visionaries: Legends of Tuskegee
Who are the Legends of Tuskegee and what do they have in common?
Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and the Tuskegee
Airmen all came to Tuskegee and created their own legends. Tuskegee
is more than a town located in Macon County, Alabama. It was a
bold experiment and a site of major African American achievements
for over 100 years. This three-part web exhibit highlights the
achievements of Washington, Carver and the Tuskegee Airmen.

A Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and the historic places associated with the struggle for civil rights that captured the attention of the United States and the world.